Shenae Grimes

These days, whenever you open a newspaper, you get smacked with a great big misery pie in the face. Layoffs. Foreclosures. Wall Street meltdowns. The Oakland Raiders. On and on it goes.

And turning to television doesn’t often ease the gloom. The season so far has been a clunker. Ratings are down and viewer unrest is rampant. Meanwhile, quality shows such as “Pushing Daisies” get killed off, while dopey debacles like “Knight Rider” inexplicably live on. Bah, humbug.

But why continue to dwell on failure and mediocrity? After all, the holiday season is upon us â€” a time for comfort and joy. And so we’ve decided to put the depress-o-rama temporarily on hold and devote this post to nothing but positive vibes.

Here, then, are some reasons to smile and to hope â€” some reasons why we continue to love TV:

— The good guys still prevail. And in difficult times, that’s apparently what we want to see. Thus, while other networks struggle, CBS is thriving with its “comfort-food” menu of basic procedural cop shows both old (the “CSI” franchise) and new (“The Mentalist”).

— HBO has put the complete seasons of “The Sopranos,” “Deadwood” and “The Wire” out on DVD in snazzy sets with plenty of extras. These shows represent some of the best television ever â€” and, yes, they would look great under the tree.

— The value of sitcoms may be plunging faster than the stock market, but “The Big Bang Theory” is proof that the genre still has plenty of pop in it.

— Aussie actor John Noble continues to make Walter Bishop, his loopy-yet-creepy mad scientist on “Fringe,” one of the most entertaining new characters of the season.

Now we really know why The CW didn’t send out advance screeners of “90210” to critics. The show is turgid, listless and pretty much DOA.

And it gives me no great joy to say that. I was looking forward to two hours of frothy fun and nostalgic vibes. Instead, the remake of Aaron Spelling’s escapist teen fantasy gave us meandering storylines containing soapy plot points we’ve all seen before and lots of young actors who looked good but failed to pop. Even the relentlessly hyped reunion of Shannen Doherty and Jennie Garth — which took 90 minutes to arrive — felt flat and feeble.